Death of an Effendi

by Michael Pearce

  ‘So,’ said the man, looking at him curiously, ‘we needed the same files.’

  ‘It appears so.’

  ‘Was that because we were looking for the same things?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  The man laughed.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s no secret. We’re both interested in the Fayoum. That was the point of the conference, wasn’t it? But I thought you would be giving us more of a free hand. Otherwise, why make it just for Russian financiers? Still, I suppose it’s only reasonable to help some of the plums for yourself. That was a smart move the British worked over the Light Railway Company! It caught us off balance, I don’t mind admitting. We’d never expected that—that you’d restrict the shares to native Egyptians only! Well, all right, no hard feelings. But you can’t expect us to leave it at that.’

  He looked at Owen.

  ‘But then, you don’t seem to be leaving it at that, either.’

  ‘Well, no.’

  It seemed to satisfy him.

  ‘I suppose we couldn’t expect that. All’s fair, after all, in love and war. And business. So you’ll not be surprised that we’re trying again. Any more than we are surprised that you’re using your advantage. We all have the benefit of being the Capitulatory Powers, but the British have the inside position!’

  ‘Why are you interested in the Fayoum?’

  ‘It was partly that fool Tvardovsky. He came to us and said that there was something there for Russia. If we could get Money interested. Well, we’d been trying to do that, get financiers interested in Egypt, I mean—after all, if you’ve got the privileges of being a Capitulatory Power, it’s crazy not to use them—and we were getting them over for a conference anyway, and then Tvardovsky came along with this project of his—’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Of course, the project itself was of no interest to us whatsoever. I mean, a cooperative! Not only that, but one inspired by the ideas of Kropotkin. Kropotkin, for God’s sake! An anarchist, a terrorist! Did he really think that the Tsar was going to encourage a Kropotkin-style cooperative? Or that financiers would put their money into such a thing? Crazy. Absolutely crazy.’

  ‘Turkeys voting for Christmas,’ put in Owen helpfully.

  Tobin looked at him, startled.

  ‘I’m not sure he envisaged poultry breeding as part of the scheme,’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘No, no. I meant it would be like voting for their own…the financiers, I mean…I mean, they’d favour free markets, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Would they? I don’t know. The men I’ve met have always favoured protected markets where they could keep everyone else out and make a lot of money. No, no, this was a quite different sort of economics, this was’—he lowered his voice—‘radical.’

  ‘Radical?’

  ‘Revolutionary, even. In Egypt, of all places. Where serious powers have serious interests. Oh, I know it was just another of his crazy ideas. But ideas are dangerous, Captain Owen, as we know only too well in Russia. They have consequences. And what consequences might an idea like that have in a country like Egypt? A workers’ cooperative in a place where workers have never had a voice in thousands of years? Where there is an ordered society not very different, if I may say so, from my own, with a nobility and a revered monarch on top? And where, as I have said, serious powers have serious interests. No, no!’

  The Russian almost shuddered.

  ‘No, no, it cannot be allowed. Let such an idea gain currency and it soon becomes a weapon in everybody’s hand. To think that we would go along with that sort of thing!’

  ‘What did you go along with?’

  ‘We agreed to let him come to the conference and put forward his ideas, knowing, of course, that they wouldn’t get anywhere. But what we did take from him was that the Fayoum was somewhere with development potential. A place with prospects! Especially if handled in the right way.’

  ‘And so you pushed the financiers towards it?’

  ‘Exactly!’ He smiled. ‘Knowing that you British were doing the same. Cooperation! That is not how the world works, is it? Egypt is not a sweetie shop. It is a lake in which big crocodiles swim. That is something that Tvardovsky did not understand. Nor that swimming in a lake where there are big crocodiles is dangerous.’

  ***

  Owen was just about to pick up the file of the following day’s newspapers and retreat to the café to read them when his eye was caught by Al-Liwa. For several days now the newspaper had included an item on Strakhov and the items had gradually grown in prominence. Tomorrow’s was well up on the second page spreading across part of two columns.

  It was a common misconception, said the article, that Al-Liwa was against foreigners. It wasn’t. It was just against the abuses inflicted on Egypt by foreign powers. It was opposed to them even when they were perpetrated on their own nationals.

  Take the case of the unfortunate Russian incarcerated in the barracks at Moharren Bay. What had originally drawn Al-Liwa’s attention to this case was the suspicion—well-founded, it appeared—that Egyptian sovereignty was being grossly abused. That was bad enough; but through focusing one’s attention on the larger issue it was easy to lose sight of an apparently lesser issue, the injustice being done to an individual. Foreign that individual might be, but while he was in Egypt he was entitled to the protection of Egypt’s laws; and that protection was being denied him.

  Mahmoud couldn’t have done better himself, thought Owen, gathering up the newspapers. In the circumstances it was good that the issue was getting an airing, even if it was in a Nationalist paper. Well, this was one item that he certainly wouldn’t be censoring!

  The telephone rang. It was Paul.

  ‘Gareth,’ he said. ‘The Old Man’s a bit concerned about a story that Al-Liwa’s been running. Every day recently there’s been a piece about a Russian down in Alexandria. Well, the Old Man feels it’s not entirely helpful. Could you do something about it?’

  ‘Paul, this is the man I spoke to you about. Remember?’

  ‘Yes. And I did speak to the Old Man, as I said I would. And this is what he said: just at the moment, he would like you to hold back.’

  ‘But why, Paul? Why does the Old Man want this?’

  There was a long pause, as if Paul was deliberating. Then he said: ‘I think it’s because, just at the moment, he’s got other fish to fry, big fish, and he doesn’t want anything else in the pan. Sorry!’

  ***

  Owen settled himself at his usual table and began to work systematically through the next day’s newspaper, marking the passages he wanted deleted or altered. There were few of them, usually just those which he thought would inflame religious or ethnic tensions. Cairo, with its many different religious and ethnic groups and its multiplicity of nationalities was like a power-keg; one spark and the whole lot might blow up. Personal abuse and scurrilous stories, of which there were plenty, he usually left, on the principle that while sticks and stones might break bones, calling people names never hurt them; although this was not a point of view that everyone in the British Administration, nor any of the politicians, agreed with.

  Of direct political intervention there was usually very little, partly because the Khedive’s office had given up trying and partly because the Consul-General, or so Owen had assumed, couldn’t be bothered. When there was, it was normally on the grounds that publishing the item would cause a riot; that is, on grounds of public order. Owen could not recall ever previously being asked to delete an item without a reason of this sort being given; and he felt very uneasy about it, so much so that he put Al-Liwa aside, leaving it till last. He hadn’t quite got to it when he saw Mahmoud coming through the tables towards him.

  He saw at once that he was out of sorts.

  Over a cup of coffee he came out with it all to Owen. Armed with his fresh knowledge about the improprieties surroun
ding the application for Strakhov’s extradition, he had gone confidently back to his superiors. The Parquet was normally strong on both matters affecting the individual and on procedure. To his astonishment they were as negative as they had been before. Annoyed, he had insisted on going higher, to the Ministry again, where, however, he had met the same response.

  ‘I got nowhere,’ he said. He was smouldering. ‘They go on about the Capitulations all the time,’ he said bitterly, ‘and then when they get offered a chance to challenge them, what do they do? Back off!’

  He looked angrily, but unseeingly, at Owen.

  ‘All of them! Ministries, politicians—every one of them! “Give it a rest, Mahmoud!” they say. Give it a rest! There’s too much giving things a rest in Egypt! Someone needs to get up and do something!’

  He took a drink from his cup.

  ‘It’s like running into a brick wall,’ he complained. ‘Everywhere, you get blocked. It’s as if—as if they’ve fenced off an area and are allowing no one in. But why, I ask myself? Why can no one go in?’

  He swallowed a great gulp of coffee, unaware that it was scalding hot.

  ‘It is as if some decision has been made. This is a special area and no one can go in. But why should that be? What is so special about it?’

  He looked almost accusingly at Owen.

  ‘What is so special about it?’ he repeated.

  Owen knew better than to reply.

  ‘Shall I tell you what I am coming to think? I am coming to think it is because it is an area that someone, someone very powerful, has marked off on their own. Who could that be? There can be no doubt, can there? Not in Egypt. The only people powerful enough to do that are the Capitulatory Powers. This is something to do with Capitulatory Privilege. And not in a trivial sense; it is not just some foreign country abusing its power in a minor way, reaching out to seize a man because he has offended them. No, it is something much bigger. It must be bigger, for them to block like this. It must be bigger if—’

  He paused.

  ‘If,’ he continued, looking at Owen, ‘they are prepared to sacrifice two of their own people for it.’

  ‘Russia?’ said Owen.

  Mahmoud laughed.

  ‘I do not think of Russia as apart from the others. This is a group of foreign countries ganging up on Egypt!’

  ‘Well—’ said Owen.

  ‘Including England,’ said Mahmoud fiercely.

  ‘Well—’ said Owen again.

  Mahmoud subsided.

  ‘That is how I see it,’ he said.

  Owen shrugged. They sat there for some time in silence. Mahmoud’s eye fell on Al-Liwa, now on top of the pile.

  ‘It drives you back,’ he said. ‘It drives you back on the one group of people who are not blocking you.’ He picked Al-Liwa up and opened it, then pointed to the article about Strakhov. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘here, at least, we are not blocked.’

  ‘Actually—’ said Owen.

  Mahmoud stared at him; not angry but puzzled. And then, as he stood up, not even puzzled, but sad.

  ***

  When Owen got back to his office he found a confused, agitated message from the old lady in the Fayoum saying that the house in Medinet had been raided and wrecked. By the Tsar, she said.

  Chapter Seven

  The woman, Natasha, was waiting for them at the door.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I told her to send for you. What is the point of having friends like the Mamur Zapt if you don’t use them?’

  ‘Where is Irena Kundasova?’

  ‘Lying down. She is in a state of shock. She was wandering around when I got here, confused, disoriented. Eighty-five,’ said the woman in cold fury. ‘Eighty-five, and they do this to her!’

  ‘Had she been physically attacked?’ asked Mahmoud.

  The woman looked at him, as if registering his presence for the first time.

  ‘Mahmoud El Zaki,’ said Owen. ‘Parquet.’

  Owen had, naturally, passed on the old lady’s message and the two men had, as naturally, come together. Mahmoud, however, was distant this morning. On the journey up in the train neither had said much.

  ‘No,’ said the woman, ‘but they shut her in a room. The servants heard her when they came the next morning.’

  ‘It was at night, then?’

  ‘She woke up early. She often does. She heard a noise and went to see. She thought perhaps a cat had got in.’

  ‘She saw them?’

  ‘Yes. There were two Arabs and a European. But I do not think she will be able to help you much. She is very confused. It all happened so quickly and in the dark.’

  ‘But she did say there was a European with them?’

  ‘Yes. But even that is not so simple.’ She made a grimace. ‘She thinks he was from the Third Section.’

  ‘The Third Section?’

  ‘It was a branch of the Tsar’s Special Police. It dealt with suspected revolutionaries.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘It was abolished,’ the woman cut in. ‘More than thirty years ago.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘It was the Third Section,’ said the woman, ‘who came for her husband. All those years ago when they were still living in Russia, before they came to Egypt. The shock—I think it carried her back, she is still very confused.’

  ‘Let her sleep. Perhaps she will be more clear in her mind after. But a European, at any rate? That much is definite.’

  They asked to see the rooms. The woman led the way in silence. She seemed to know the house well.

  The sight was oddly familiar. Everywhere, cupboard doors were hanging open, the contents pulled out on to the floor. Drawers had been pulled out and simply tipped up. Anything closed had been opened. The valuable pots, the plates in their niches, had been left undisturbed.

  The room most affected was the one that had been the old lady’s working room or study. Here there were desks, two of them, one which was obviously hers and a bigger one which had probably belonged to her husband. The bigger one had a rolltop which had been forced. The drawers of the middle one had simply been pulled out. Letters were scattered everywhere.

  The woman stooped and picked some of them up.

  ‘These!’ she said, shaking them in Owen’s face. ‘Her husband’s letters to her! They read them. She had tied them with ribbon and they pulled the bundles apart. Her husband’s letters! Her dead husband’s! What good would they have been to them? Why do they do these things? Why?’

  She burst into tears.

  Owen tried to take her by the arm. She pulled away angrily.

  ‘No!’ she said fiercely. ‘I will not cry. I will kill them!’

  He managed to get her out of the room and took her to the takhtabosh, where he made her lie down.

  He went back to the study. On his way he passed through the room with the wooden mastaba running along the wall and the mummy portraits opposite. Propped beside them, still in its paper wrapping, was the one Natasha had brought from the gallery.

  In the study Mahmoud was standing beside the old woman’s desk. He turned and showed Owen a handful of notes.

  ‘They weren’t looking for money,’ he said.

  ***

  They went in search of the servants and found them in the kitchen. As in many of the old Mameluke houses, the kitchen was an outhouse. Food had to be carried across the open courtyard to the dining room, but the disadvantage was outweighed by the comfort of having the heat and the smells kept separate from the part of the house used for living in.

  There were four servants sitting shocked and silent on the stone floor. One was cook, one a gardener, one a houseboy, who cleaned the house, and one a youngster not much more than a child, who appeared to understudy everything. It was he who had raised the alarm. One of his duties was to light the fire in the kitche
n before the others came, and as he was crossing the courtyard he had heard the old lady’s cries. He had roused the others and they had gone together into the house and found Irena Kundasova locked in a storeroom. They had taken her to her room and tended her and then sent for the police.

  ‘Was not the woman here?’

  ‘The woman?’

  ‘The other Sitt.’

  Natasha had arrived later.

  ‘But before the Mudir,’ said the gardener tartly.

  She had at once sent for the hakim, and he had prescribed a pill for the old lady which had made her sleep for most of the rest of the day.

  Meanwhile, Natasha had taken charge. They all knew her, she was often here, and had been content to leave things to her. She had spent the day by the old lady’s bedside; except that when the Mudir had at last arrived, she had come down and chided him. She had refused to let him touch anything in the affected rooms.

  ‘Leave that for those who know what they are doing,’ she had said, much to the pleasure of the houseboy, who had then retailed this to the other servants and most of Medinet.

  It was at this point that she had sent for the Mamur Zapt, taking the message along to the station herself. The mention of the Mamur Zapt had stilled the Mudir’s protests and he had withdrawn to his office, leaving everything in the house as it was.

  ‘That is, perhaps, as well,’ said Mahmoud, ‘although he should have notified the Parquet. But there were other things,’ Mahmoud said wrathfully, ‘that he should have looked to. The men came in the night. Has he checked to see if anyone saw them? They must have used a light.’

  But the Mudir, it appeared, overwhelmed by the prospect of yet another encounter with the mighty, or, at least, the awkward, had made no such inquiries.

  ‘The house,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Did he look to that? How did the men get in? Were not the doors barred?’

  ‘They were, Effendi. I saw to it myself.’

  ‘Then how did they get in?’

  ‘There are windows above, Effendi.’